Pirate radio and the Velvet Divorce

The History Hour

BBC

History, Society & Culture, Personal Journals

4.4 • 879 Ratings

🗓️ 4 February 2023

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The launch of the first black music station in Europe - the Dread Broadcasting Corporation in London in 1981 - and why Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993.

Plus the assassination of Burundian President Melchior Ndadaye, the Columbia space shuttle disaster and the bombing of the Palestine Post.

Contributors:

Michael Williams - former DBC station manager Carmella Jervier - DJ Dr Caroline Mitchell - Professor of Radio at the University of Sunderland Jean-Marie Ngendahayo - former minister in Burundi Václav Klaus - former prime minister of the Czech Republic Vladimír Mečiar - former prime minister of Slovakia Mordechai Chertoff - former foreign editor of the Palestine Post Admiral Hal Gehman - Chairman of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board

(Photo: Radio Caroline Pirate Radio ship. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to the History Hour podcast from the BBC World Service with me Max Pearson,
0:05.0	the past brought to life by those who were there.
0:07.8	Coming up, a doomed attempt to bring Hutu and Tutsi together in Burundi in the 1990s.
0:13.2	What Nandayer wanted to change was first equity, which means all the citizens are equal,
0:22.4	in front of the law.
0:24.0	Also, we remember the 1948 bombing in Jerusalem with a Jewish newspaper as the target.
0:30.0	Plus the painstaking effort to analyze exactly what caused the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster in 2003.
0:37.0	And from 30 years ago, the Velvet Divorce, which saw the creation of Slovakia and the Czech Republic.
0:42.6	One of the ambassadors told me,
0:44.6	you showed Europe that splitting a country
0:47.5	can be down peacefully, and Europe will never forget that.
0:51.8	That's all coming up later in the podcast.
0:54.5	But we're going to begin with an important moment in the cultural history of the UK.
0:59.1	This happened just over 40 years ago in 1981, with the launch of a London Pirate Radio Station called DBC or The Dread Broadcasting Corporation.
1:08.8	It was important because it gave a voice to a black community which felt decidedly underrepresented at the time.
1:15.0	Neil Meads has spoken to one of the deges and a former station manager. So good evening each and everyone and once again welcome to the sound of DBC.
1:27.0	Tread Broadcasting Corporation is the first black owned and controlled station in Europe.
1:32.8	England needs a black station.
1:34.8	Europe needs a black station.
1:36.8	It's the same music every day, the same chat
1:39.2	and the same jokes.
1:41.2	Camela Jervier is a 22 year old social worker in London. To her, DBC sounds like nothing she's ever heard before.
	...

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